a moment of clarity

Encounter Design

What started as a random wishful daydream about an X-men Danger Room-style training dummy set up eventually turned into an idea about a raid encounter where the raid itself took very little damage. Trust me, somehow I made that leap.

But if the raid (including the tanks) aren’t taking much damage, what’s a healer to do? Another Valithria/Tsulong-type encounter?

Not quite. But close.

Imagine you zone in to the fight and find Thrall and Garrosh tearing it up. Like most “decorative” NPC battles, they would be locked in a stalemate until the party engages. So sit back, enjoy your Pandaren Banquet and watch the two heavies beat the shit out of each other. Garrosh, of course, has a gajabillion HP and damage reduction shield and probably all sorts of other buffs.

Around the room, you’ll find the faction leaders – restrained and wounded. Remember, Garrosh is supposed to really flip out with Sha Power so I don’t imagine this would be out of his reach. And while Jaina technically isn’t a faction leader, I can’t help but see her involved. (Any bets on if Jaina later goes Sha-touched and destroys something?)

For most of the fight, Thrall will keep Garrosh’s attention (Hey, there was a time when shaman could sort of tank, work with me here). But there will be times where Thrall falters and a tank will need to taunt Garrosh to give time for Thrall to recover. The tank will get hit like a truck and need to use cooldowns, probably external as well, especially at the beginning of the fight.

Since he starts with shields and crazy protections, the raid won’t be able to do much to Garrosh directly. But Garrosh is not alone! He has his protector force which he will summon periodically in waves. This gives the tanks something to do when Thrall has it under control and provides most of the danger for the raid.

To go with his gajabillion HP, Garrosh will also have a tight enrage timer before he blows up into full-blown Sha. The requirement will be much more than what a raid could possibly bring to the table. How to beat him?

Back to the captured faction leaders. In their current state, each leader can provide no assistance. It will be up to the DPS to break through the bonds (and any guards) and up to the healers to restore the leaders to full health so they may join the fray. A leader must be healed AND freed from his or her bonds before providing assistance.

Much like the Keepers in Ulduar, each leader brings a different skill set to the table. Some might provide a passive buff, like Valen buffs healing – making it easier to free subsequent leaders. Some might take direct action in the fight, Vol’Jin darts in and out with poisons. Others might give players a new ability, Varian gives the tanks an awesome devastating attack as an extra action button. Others remove Garrosh’s protections, a sundering blow from Baine cracks Garrosh’s protective shield for 30 seconds. Only through the use of these additional buffs and abilities will the raid hope to bring Garrosh down.

Once freed, the leaders won’t take much damage. But until they are freed, Garrosh will randomly target one to torment, bringing their HP even lower. If the healers cannot heal them fast enough or the DPS cannot free them in time, the leader will slip into unconsciousness and be unavailable for the remainder of the fight.

At the release of the encounter, raids will find it hard to free more than a couple of the leaders before Garrosh dispatches the rest. It will be a strategic choice to focus on specific leaders to boost weak points in the raid comp (hopefully before Garrosh does away with a favored choice to free). As time progresses, and raids gear up, it will be easier to free more leaders, making the fight go much faster.

All sorts of achievements available for this one. Release each leader (can be achieved over multiple runs). Only release Horde or Alliance leaders. Release all the leaders. Maybe someday, release none of the leaders?

I’m sure the Garrosh encounter is already well underway, but would anyone else join my raid to do this fight?

I know what you mean! That’s why I tried to have the NPCs not interact directly with the fight continuously, but rather provide buffs or periodic assistance. I get that it’s no fun to watch the fight be handled by an outside force, but how cool would it be to really fight side by side with your favorite leaders?

I like it as well.
Once the leader is freed do they stay in play (specifically the 30 second of no shield )? Does freeing that specific leader just mean the 30 seconds of unmitigated by shield damage? Does using such a powerful ability damage the leader who will then need to be tended to by the heals again?
It would be kind of neat if garrosh would take one of the leaders out of play temporarily
Do you continue working on the DPs leader when the healing leader has been stopped or do you switch?

All I know is that no matter how fun it looks now, it would hurt in raid finder.

My thought around each leader’s ability is that it would be either a continuous buff to the raid (+ healing or damage) or they would give a periodic attack of some sort on Garrosh. Baine gathers strength for the attack… launches a totem-club-thing at Garrosh… then has to retrieve it and ready his next attack. Vol’Jin darts in and applies a poison debuff, then retreats to the shadows to wait for the next opening. Meanwhile Velan sits in the corner and channels some sort of uber-healing aura that is continuous.

As awesome as it would be to have the entirety of the Azeroth leadership lay the smackdown on Garrosh at once, you run in to the problem of not enough space on the screen to see what’s happening and it becomes an encounter where the players just sit back a sip an iced tea until the purples drop. But if the raid has to pay attention to what the leaders are doing and react to it (like burning Garrosh during a broken shield and ignoring adds as best you can until the window of opportunity closes) the fight becomes really fun (for someone like me who likes that sort of thing).

Admittedly, this fight could be atrocious on LFR. I think the Dungeon Journal could be used to give a good idea of what each leader does – assuming that people read it. (I admit, I don’t read it often because mine is bugged out. What, you wanted to actually click on a fight to learn more? Sucks to be you!) But I don’t think it would be any worse than any other LFR fight. The mechanic where a leader is removed from play entirely if not healed in time could be removed, that would help with groups that can’t agree fast enough on which NPCs to free. I’m hearing Lei Shen is particularly abusive to the uncoordinated group with a plethora of mechanics; this fight would have fewer mechanics, just more choices.